


Spellbound

by GreasePaintEnthusiast



Category: Joker (2019)
Genre: Bad Decisions made impuslively with glee, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Guilt, I made artie a girlfriend with my own tears and she can see sounds, Incorrect Depictions of Synesthesia, Is it voyeurism if they're listening to one another?, Loss of Virginity, Mental Instability, Minor Injury Blood Play, Movie Night, Neighbors, OC is feral mess tbh, Original Character(s), Period Typical Attitudes, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Spontaneous Psychedelic Orgasms, Weirdo Meet Cute, acousticophilia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-01-27 15:10:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21394231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreasePaintEnthusiast/pseuds/GreasePaintEnthusiast
Summary: A Foley artist for Gotham's independent film scene can't control herself and gets in deep with her neighbor, Arthur Fleck.--Trying my best to stay within the lines of the movie's world building. This begins a little before the movie and will follow the events in it. This is tagged slow burn, but there's some flares of dirtiness before we really turn it on.
Relationships: Arthur Fleck/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 86





	1. Sound

Carrie’s back and thighs imparted some serious concerns to her as she wrenched her beloved down the hall of her apartment building. She rounded and heaved his alter-like mass forward, and hissed a soft “ _ Shit, No!” _ as it veered around a column. A corner of his scraped a wall, taking some grime off the plaster. Luckily it hadn’t gouged the wall, and after regaining her bearings she steered her monument down the last stretch to her new home.

“It’s okay baby, we’re almost there.” She sang sweetly to her dearest possession: A Hammond Colonnade Organ, the premiere, top of the line electric aerophone (that was within budget). He had been the most expensive purchase of her life, and typically she treated him very delicately, but today, the object of her affection found no tenderness. He was heavy, and she had more boxes to unpack, furniture to rebuild, and she would need to conserve her energy.

Parking her unwieldy machine, she reached for her keys and unlocked the door. As she carefully pulled the organ over the threshold into her apartment, she heard the opening tones of  _ Live with Murray Franklin _ muffled through the wall on her right. She bristled as she realized she would probably receive several complaints about noise. The notion dulled her senses. She had moved so much she felt trampled.

  
  


Rebuilding the bed had been a rough affair. It was old and iron and didn’t want to behave for her. After an hour of struggling it came together but sometime after midnight she settled for unpacking just the essentials. At 2 a.m. she drew a bath to soak her limbs and let her mind drift and wane.

Sounds crept into her head and balanced her, plying her with visions. Cars ran into winding red paths, kept tidy by the wind whipping lines of grey around them. They wrap around her new building like a cocoon. Inky black footsteps bloom into spots that weave trails on every floor, to the doors and the orange columns of the elevators. Elevator machinery is primo—it really sends her—and she shifts under the water. The sound of it swirling sends her into a safe pool of deep green, but this is disturbed—**_a sharp gasp brings shadows,_** **_a gag conjures a lurid plume of pink against her back, a stifled cry does one bleed of glowing yellow gold that splashes onto her bare chest and pours down her body_**

An involuntary moan flies out of her mouth before she can stifle it. Carrie’s eyes snap open and she rolls her head to the side. The new sound was so fast it’s like it was never there. The tactile sensation persisted and drove her out of the bath. She draped a robe over herself and went to start unpacking some recording equipment in case the sound came back.

_ It came from that wall, right? _

It reeled over in her mind. It was such a specific sound—and the reaction. She found the box she needed under two other boxes, but when she went to remove them, her shoulders gave such a protest that she halted. She caught her own eye in her vanity mirror and regarded herself with disgust.

_ God you’re pathetic. You’re a rotten pervert, recording mystery sounds for your own sick needs.  _ She silences the intrusion with an affirmation she learned years ago, and the possibility of shame fades with the will to capture the sound. She dressed and crawled her way into bed.   
_ It stopped anyway. You probably won’t hear it again. _

She was almost asleep when she heard the laughter. Grotesque throaty cackling ripped through the dark of her home and tore her out of sleep. She was swimming with dopamine, serotonin, endorphins—it felt like every good chemical she could make was firing on every cylinder. It was hotter than the mechanical grind of a motor and pulleys, that was certain. Carrie bolted up out of bed and began pushing her bed towards the wall, causing all sorts of burgundy weeds to shoot up from the floor with every groan as she scooted it.

Once it was against the wall, she grabbed a glass from the kitchen, discarded her nightgown, and slipped back under the sheets. At first she fumbled, trying to keep her respective balls in the air—espionage and masturbation—but she gave up on espionage, as the laughter was loud enough that she suspected she had never needed the glass. It was an awful,  _ awful _ sound, but it felt like joy. Joy was so hard to find.

The laughter stopped too soon for her, and she scolded herself for heading straight into the act without recording. Frustrated, she closed her eyes again seeking balance, and found the shadows gasping for air, the grand sound’s prelude. It wasn’t as calming or as bright as the laughter, but it was enough for her to finish. She slept.

* * *

  
Wracked with involuntary laughter, Arthur worked to quiet the fit. He was sure he must have been keeping the neighbors up. They had just gotten a new one, and he didn’t want her to have any reason to complain about the noise.


	2. Down Girl

The next morning Carrie awoke feeling rested and lighter than air. She didn’t have to balance herself until the middle of the afternoon--a small victory. Her time had instead been spent unpacking and reassembling her space. Living room first, TV humming, VCR whirring softly, it’s trichroic prisms beaming across her bare couch. She grinned as she put away her dishes, hearing the sounds of breaking celery, tearing rubber, and wet sponges call from the console.

The tech had been a gift from an old mentor. He wanted her to be able to show people what she did at dinner parties. Either she didn’t have the heart to tell him that dinner parties were above her pay grade, or maybe she didn’t say anything because she wanted the VCR; the memory escaped her.

Carrie was a foley artist. It was her job to record sounds for movies. Little sounds like a creaky hinge or basic road sounds, to more important sounds like the sharp scrape of a sword escaping its sheath. The people she trusted with knowledge about her visions would joke that she was cheating by choosing sound design as a career path.

_ “It must be easy to match sounds when you can see them.” _

She’d give them a sly look and breathe her words like an old movie star.

_ “It is.” _

Her organ was backed against the wall behind the sofa. He was surrounded by masses of microphones, cables, various pickups, and some stands upon which sat mixing boards. The wall itself was lined with thick foam to help with the acoustics, as well as a few short bookcases obscured by old curtains. Some of the shelves housed traditional tools and instruments, but others held a variety of guts from small kitchen appliances, power tools, and scraps of musical instruments from all the times she’d had to make a sacrifice for a new sound.

Carrie had started working from home because the work slowed. It was a tough time for the arts all over the country, but especially in Gotham. The situation had led to her taking up some jobs that caught her some flack, but she found herself blending into her environment like wet paint. At the end of the day, someone could say it was art. What else is there to strive for?  
  
The day was halfway over and she was almost through with the last of the organizing when she heard it again. Just as powerful as last night, it hit her like a punch to the stomach. Carrie almost hit the ground when that horrible noise gripped her, taunting her. She immediately went to balance and noticed something new in the sound, something that was unmistakable. The source was on the move, towards the hallway. A dreadful thought clouded her.

_What if the sound was just visiting?_ _No way, hell no, it can’t be-_

She heard a lock being fiddled with and she had a split second to grapple with the concept that meeting the face behind the sound might ruin the sound itself. It had happened before.

Caught up by the faintest hint of the shadowy breathing that had edged her along last night, she ran to the door. It flung open a bit too hard and she almost stumbled, scrambling into the hallway.

What she found there was a startled man who had turned back to look at her. He was narrow, almost wiry. His hair was either wet or dirty, dark with light silver strands that flew away from how he’d combed it. It framed a face that looked crafted to be stern. What was his face actually doing? She couldn’t tell, but in an instant she realized he reminded her of Boris Karloff, and she knew any pretense of not wanting to fuck this man was gone.

“H-Hello? Are you okay?” He spoke to her, but the words ** _passed through her like a ghost_ **. Carrie snapped back into the world around her, focusing on his face.

“I’m sorry?” She called back. _ This is so awkward for us. I’m sorry, but I have to lay in my home-made bed of ruination... _

“Are you… okay?” He said more slowly, concern etching in.

Carrie broke out in a smile she’d once heard a lesser colleague call a show of submission. She needed to sell this.

“No I’m quite alright, sorry. I thought I heard something…” She trailed off, holding his gaze.

“I just moved in— I’m expecting some packages. I’m Carrie. It’s so nice to meet you.” She spoke a little too quickly, and started to scan his face for any sign he was unsettled. Like her father had always said; cold reading is fundamental. She almost balanced out when she heard those ** _shadows_ ** brewing in his chest, but Carrie kept it together.

And so did Arthur. He was able to kill his oncoming attack with a cough. The man smiled sweetly, but it seemed like his mouth was too tight for that expression. He didn’t look off put or disinterested though, which was a better outcome than expected.

“It’s so nice to meet you too. I’m Arthur, Arthur Fleck.” He held his hand out and she shook it, grateful for something to mask any nervous quivering she might be unaware of. She felt like she maybe smiled a little too brightly back at him, but her pulse was quickening and she felt her flight urges surge, telling her to escape before she could make a mistake.

“You headed to work?” The small talk rolled off her lips naturally, but she had no idea what the fuck she was doing. Carrie clumsily raised her arm up to lean against the trim of her doorway.

Arthur searched her with his eyes. He appreciated the conversation but she seemed jittery. It was like she was scared of him. She didn’t even know him. Arthur identified some negative thoughts.

“Uh yeah, I—” He started.

“Cool, I’ll let you do that—” She realized too late she’d stepped on his sentence, and shifted back into a regular conversational standing position for human beings.

“I—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine. I do have to go, though. I can’t be late…” He pointed towards the elevator.

“Right, yeah, I’ll catch you later.” Carrie turned, fully swept herself into her apartment, shut the door and leaned back against it. She balanced and waited. It took about 2 minutes for him to begin walking towards the elevator. _Probably had to cleanse himself of your far out flirting styles._

Opening her eyes, she exhaled heavily with a soft growl. That had been excruciating. He was fucking delicious. His eyes had reminded her of the first time she’d heard rain over open water. That was too much. The whole thing was fucking stupid. It was frustrating and she wished to be free of this prospect for a while.

“Did you know Hammond?” Her voice rang out over her apartment, from kitchen to couch.

“Oh, well, you see, my dear…” She opened a cabinet and retrieved small tumbler. She poured herself a double shot of a dark, spice smelling liquor and returned her bottle back to it’s home.

“I’m really very glamorous. Truly! I am a dangerous _ femme fatale_.”

Carrie swallowed the drink greedily and stalked towards the bench in front of her organ. “A real man eater—no moral code can bind the erotic nature of my sadistic whims!” She crowed, as she assumed her place in front of the keys.

She adjusted her drawbars and flipped her Vibrato and Zipper Leslie switches to draw out a soap-opera-worthy three note retort from her beloved. She cackled to herself and hummed slightly with the subsequent tangle of noise she produced with him. Eventually her mind wandered back to Arthur and her laughter died on a disruptive visual.

  
_They were standing, clinging to one another in the middle of the elevator cab. Arthur was writhing on her and laughing against her mouth in an unhinged embrace. The memory of the sound sent a shock through her. She watched herself tear at the edge of his shirt, ripping it up from where it was tucked behind his belt buckle. His fingers were laced around her arm above the elbow, keeping her close to him as she pushed his open shirt over his shoulders._

_ He released his grip on her other arm so he could shove the rest of the sleeve off before returning to grab her roughly around the waist, and pinned the arm she’d used to free him against it. Arthur arched his back to lurch over her and buried his mouth just under her ear. She could see herself gasp beneath him, before he cut her off with a sloppy kiss and shrugged the other side of his shirt down. She never saw his arm return into frame—her attention was fixed on the gleaming wet mark that he’d left on her neck. He broke the kiss to study her face in front of his. _

Carrie heard what he was doing before her double could react. It jolted her out of the fantasy. She swallowed hard and departed from Hammond, telling herself there was too much work left to do before she could start recording.

  
Arthur was gobsmacked. She had been so...so _tall, _practically towering over him. He had only come up to her shoulder, which means he was at eye level with—

He didn’t allow himself to finish the train of thought. There was no use in loading any wood before work; he had no fires to start.


	3. Behave Like a Human

Carrie didn’t see Arthur again for another few days. This was self-imposed. The prospect of hearing him had clouded her decision making, and she had to pull herself back and focus more on the work.

A muffled clattering sound knocked about next door. Arthur was making lunch for himself and his mother. She’d been able to pick up on a few things about his home life through the wall. He lived with his mother; who, at first, Carrie had mistaken for a bird, before realizing she was in the bedroom of their apartment. He also worked odd hours, like he was on call, and slept on the couch in their living room. He stayed up late watching television nearly as often as she did, and it felt encouraging for what she was trying to work up to. Actual work came first, and the sound was alive with her today.

This was one of her dirty jobs. An independent smut production had botched some audio, and were praying she could salvage something for them. She’d watched their movie twice—off balance first, to know what she should be looking at, then in balance to see what was actually there. The performers were stressed and it was leaking through in spatterings of vermillion being flung off their bodies to the floor. It sprays drops off the man more frequently and his pace increases.

Carrie kept her eyes closed, her ears searching for the pattern of his... Thunderous? No, this was a galloping pace. She reached for a joint she’d left on her coffee table. She opened her eyes and lit it, taking a deep drag and holding the smoke in her lungs.

“Hammond, seriously, the _ stamina _ on these two.” The smoke gnarled her voice as she spoke to her organ.

“The fucking—_ cough _—bed springs are going to be hell.” She sighed. One flair of screaming bounced into the room from her TV, causing her to cuss in a voice a little deeper than how she usually spoke. She hastily leaned for the remote and turned the sound down as the participant on her back was reduced to a glowing pink puddle in Carrie’s mind’s eye.

“Lord.” she muttered to herself. This is why a second viewing was so important. She couldn’t even tell that that orgasm had been real the first time. _ Have you considered that you didn’t notice ‘cause you’d rather spend your time jerking off to someone sounding like they’re dying than forging interpersonal relationships? _

As if on cue, she heard Arthur’s **shadows** stir, and enthusiastic heat sprawled across the front of her body. Carrie laid her head back and drew in air to try and ride out the sensation, but Arthur must’ve really flipped his giggle box because the rounds kept echoing out until the gold was marred with soft, sputtering pink gags. Her entire system was shot by the time it was over. Her pulse was in her ears and her skin was on fire.

The movie was still going and it flooded her with subliminal speed flashes of reenactments she needed. Violet electricity skated up her thighs to urge her to consider a possible future. Its currents key her in to the beats of the thrusting performer’s stokes into his companion.

She was shaking when she brought herself out of the balance and started taking notes on how to how to replicate the subtleties of a fucking atmosphere. Supplies were going to be necessary. She needed to leave.

Next door, Arthur thought Carrie must have a new friend, based on what he could hear. He’d been plagued by the moans and racket of a bad mattress for hours. It was inconsiderate at least, and a twisting reminder of his own loneliness at worst. He desperately needed to get away from this. He needed to leave. He made short work of throwing on his shoes and grappling with his keys.

The two looked equally shocked to see one another in the hall. Carrie spoke first after a quick and silent prayer to Hell, asking that she could become a vampire to mesmerize him with a seductress’s gaze.

“Hey pal, long time no see,” she said dryly. She internally scolded herself. _ Don’t you dare fucking lean against this door way again, you idiot. _

Arthur panicked. He could clearly still hear the sounds of coitus emanating from her home. Could she hear them? Were they even there? He tried to say something, but instead what came out was the garbled mess of shrieks and hacks that charged their way up his torso and trampled his breath like a cavalry.

Carrie toppled backwards—hearing his laughter outside the balance wasn’t as debilitating as being in the balance—but she still had to struggle not to call out. She couldn’t get used to the speed with which the episodes would come to her, and she felt like she was floating as she tried to prop herself up on the wall.

She saw Arthur sinking to the floor, half bent over trying to cover his mouth, hide his face and reach into his pocket. He was still laughing but his face was agony. His eyes tried to meet anything but hers, while hers remained locked on. She was completely entranced by what she was seeing. He shakily reached to hand her a laminated card. Carrie was trashed—nah, she was trash—and she reached for the card, her arm trembling to match.   
  
**Forgive my laughter. I have a condition. (more on back) ** ****  
**  
** **It's a medical condition causing sudden, frequent, uncontrollable laughter that doesn’t match how you feel. It can happen in people with a brain injury or certain neurological condition**

The laughter eased into wheezing gasps and guilt flooded her. She handed the card back. Arthur started falling all over himself.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you! I can’t help it once it starts...” He was shaking his head and starting to get up. A blush had flooded over his sharp cheekbones and over the apples of his face. He was embarrassed and stammering through his apologies. His eyes were wet and so was she.

_ Fuck I’m such a goddamn mess. I’m a fucking disability fetishist now, Hammond. How _ en vogue_. _

“No need to be sorry,” she said. “I just didn’t expect it.” Her face split open with sympathy when she said it. “I—uh—I have a condition too—well, a few conditions, but I get it.” She realized how hoarse she sounded when she spoke as she rose up from her knees. 

“D-do you have…” He started. The sounds of love were still carrying through her door. “Roommates?” His landing on the final word was nervous, but sufficient. 

Carrie’s brow knitted. The warbled cry and static-laced breath that rang out from under her door dropped her an obvious hint. The color drained from her face, and the sound froze her for a split second before she could answer him. “Oh! That! That is my tele-vision.” was the answer and it felt wrong.

Oh this was bad. Bad. bad. Bad. Her voice was taking on new inflections to cover for her panic. Fuck it, she was toast. Totally charred.

_ Might as well go for broke. I wonder if he’s gonna squirm at this. _

“I was watching a skin flick for work. I must’ve left it on.” She shrugged, resigned to this failure. 

Arthur eyes flickered open almost too wide for a second and he cleared his throat. The blush over his face had come back.

“You watch dirty movies for a living?” He made a flamboyant scoff. “Where do I get that job?”

Carrie rewarded him with a two-note giggle—_ Holyshit, I’m in BUSINESS. Shh okay, calm down dial it up just a little _—before she lowered her gaze to his belt and brought it back up to his eyes. 

_ Man-eater. Dangerous Femme Fatale. Vampire. _ _   
_

“I make sound effects for the movies—All kinds, not just the carnal ones. This shoot didn’t have the best cables, so now I get to recreate the—” she paused to flex her arm and tighten her fist in front of her chest for emphasis— “raw power of human intercourse, for the viewing pleasure of others."

_Good, now show some teeth and do the hair thing. _She did, but she wasn’t sure she had a smooth transition. Arthur was radiant and Carrie thought he might hear the cicadas screaming under her ribs—whatever it was felt too loud to be butterflies. 

“What do you do for a living, Arthur?” She continued, almost singing at him. Arthur started to relax more and the last of the tension in his body from his attack dropped off him.

“Right now I’m a clown, but I’ve been working on getting into comedy.” He was brightening to her and she felt like she was in the sun. 

“Oh? Got any good ones yet?”

His posture lifted up and he smiled. It was a rush.

“Knock, knock.” He was giggling while he delivered it, nervous and excited. 

Carrie took a step towards him, leaning in like she was about to hear a secret. 

“Who’s there” 

“Amanda.”  
  
“Amanda who?”

“A man died last night, Carrie.” 

He had said it so casually, but that hitch of laughter was stuck behind his jaw, distorting his voice a little. Her mouth fell open and a screech of delight lodged in her throat before it could escape. She silently covered her mouth with both hands. 

“Arthur, that’s _ sick- _ I LOVE it.” 

He laughed of his own volition, and it graced her like silk.


	4. Blue Moon

Carrie’s nervous system was completely shot. It had been a week of hearing Arthur's laughter cracking through the walls, and she had accepted the shudders her body went through when it came for her. She'd been forced to take more care in choosing when to balance herself, but her lurid thoughts remained insistent.

It was taking a lot to remain content this way, she considered. She’d spent the better part of the day editing together recordings she'd done for the "dirty movie," as Arthur had put it. The vocals weren't on her plate — thank the lord, because she was completely sick of listening to someone else getting fucked. After a while the sound blended together and became a series of strange animal calls and it was exhausting.

It was done, though, and Carrie was itching to reward herself. Well, there _was_ a new movie she’d wanted to see. Could always give that a whirl. She found her copy of the paper and flipped around for local showtimes and almost tore it.A loud swear broke out of her mouth before she could remember to not to shout because it attracts attention.  
  
He’d heard her through the wall, of course. Laughing, frustrated groaning, **her music**, **the sound he was sure he could hear but shouldn’t listen to**—Arthur had heard all of it. He knew Carrie was probably at least seeing a man; he heard her talking to him a lot.

She’d been so  _ nice _ to him the last time they spoke. He wanted to know more about her —w ho her friends were, where she goes, what does she do for fun? — but she rarely left her apartment, and you can’t follow someone who doesn’t leave. His mind wandered back to her reaction to the joke he’d told her and more importantly  **her reaction to it. ** She seemed absolutely giddy when he delivered the punchline. It was enough to make him forget that she’d recoiled so greatly when he was consumed with laughter, for a moment, but even after that her casual reassurance had helped it to stop. Warm vines stretched over his ribs beneath his skin. He’d felt it before, when he’d been taken on these flights of fantasy, but the memory of the rejections that followed iced them over quickly.   


_ She’ll do it too. She’ll laugh in your fucking face and tear you apart. No one wants you. You’re just a creep. Leave it alone.  _   


Arthur scowled deeply. More negative thoughts. His eyes twitched softly, focused on nothing.   


He could hear Carrie moving around next door; rushed footsteps, talking, and the jingling of keys. He rose like a shot and bolted towards the door. He had the knob turned in one hand as he pressed his ear to the door. Her door opened and he heard her shoes clack against the tiles of the hallway. He opened the door slightly and watched as she walked away from him. The vines were back, this time growing their way below the waistband of his slacks.

_ What is THAT _

He closed the door hastily as she pressed the button to summon the elevator.  _ That _ had been a pair of black leather cigarette pants that looked like someone had painted them onto Carrie’s legs. He hadn’t been looking at her legs.

Arthur was stirred. He felt too hot; his clothes, suffocating. He swallowed hard and let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in. He smacked the sides of his own face with open palms to try and clear out the haze of lust that’d fallen over him.   


Arthur adjusted himself, trying not to let his hand linger. It still did and he bit his lower lip. _Why would she wear that? Why would she wear that unless she wanted to be looked at? She wouldn’t wear that if she didn’t want to be looked at like _**_that._** _  
_

His thoughts were hurried and he rested his forehead against the door.    


“Happy?”    


“Just heading out Mom! I’ll be back soon!”    


“Make sure you wear a jacket! It’s supposed to be cold!”   


Arthur rolled his eyes and jerked the door open. Maybe he went a bit too quickly down the stairs: his hair fell in front of one of his eyes and he almost fell. But tonight he had a sole purpose—a singular goal. If Carrie wanted to be looked at, he was going to be looking at her.  
  
The leather pants helped keep the wind off her legs as she walked to the theater. The weather in Gotham had been turning in on itself, leaving a hard chill in the air. It felt too cold for late August. She shivered and felt a wave of relief as she saw the marquee lights shimmer in the distance. The barrel curls in her dishwater blonde hair bounced as she picked up her pace. 

  
He was across the street, about ten yards behind her. Arthur wished he could have been walking behind her for this instance, but with his luck she’d drop something and turn around to pick it up. Would she know what he was doing? Would she be mad to see him? He’d been confronted by a woman in a similar situation before, and it had _hurt._  


_ You should want to walk beside her _ — _ what is  _ wrong  _ with you? _ _   
_

He did his best to ignore the thought and kept his gaze on her. The way her hair was glowing under the streetlamps reminded him of Rita Hayworth and he almost slipped into a daydream where he could see himself in Glenn Ford’s place. Carrie started jogging a little bit, and he was afraid she had seen him, but he finally realized her destination—Carrie was going to see a movie. She looked excited, like she was bounding towards an old friend she was eager to see. The vines that gripped his chest tightened for a moment and he walked more parallel to her position. Her back was to him as she hopped in line for the ticket booth. It took all of his effort not to leer and kept his eyes on the back of her head—at first. He suddenly imagined **being close to her, looking up at her as she smirked down at him and** **pushed him back onto any bed, standing before him and using her long fingers to unbuckle her belt and undo the buttons and zippers over her****—**  


He was slammed back to reality when he realized she was staring back at him now.   
  


Carrie was  _ very _ excited. With a slight frown she recognized a rumbling flutter in her chest, urging her to feel more.   


_ Fucking. Shit.  _ _   
_

She palmed her forehead and rested into a deep scowl. Manic episodes can be fun, but the after effects are a steep dive into a hell made flesh. She closed her eyes and bounced on her heels a little. Balancing in public had dangerous potential —w hat idiot stands still in Gotham with their eyes closed and expects nothing to happen? — but she felt safe enough with the line in front of her to dip out for a moment.    


The first thing she heard was popcorn in the theater. Soft cola colored orbs bursting and folding away like Pac-Man. The people around her were silhouettes filled with softly murmuring clouds**. **She smiled finally and swayed a little. She let herself venture into the sounds behind her. Ribbons of cars would occasionally drive by leaving their trail of red_, _the rattle of a busted muffler almost covering up a soft growl that **flooded the streets with rolling shadows that wrapped around her skull like a crown of ash.**   


Her eyes flew open and she turned her head to look over her shoulder so fast that her neck cracked.    


“Arthur!” She yelled to him. Arthur looked like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t and for a moment she was worried he was going to bolt. She waved at him, pretending like she thought he couldn’t see her.

He crossed the street to meet her.    


“Hi stranger.” She greeted him with a warm drawl.

He was glad he could blame the shiver it sent through him on the cold. “H — hey Carrie.” He looked like he was going to choke to death on his own anxiety.   


“You going to see AmWolf too?”    


“AmWolf?”   


She giggled. Arthur was sure she had to be lulling him into a false sense of security. “An American Werewolf in London. Sorry, it’s just really wordy.”   


“Y — yeah!” He blurted.

This was a lie, and Carrie could tell. She’d stepped a little closer to him trying to close as much distance as she could between them.  _ GET HIM  _ “Do you wanna watch it together?”   


“...yes.”

She smiled. “Great. It’s a date.”

* * *

Bobby Vinton crooned melancholy words over a serene countryside. It felt weird. Appropriate and wrong at the same time. Perfect for the film, obviously, but Carrie didn’t like the way it tugged inside her chest. Arthur looked a little uncomfortable and she had to beat back her own urges. She had wanted to see this movie after all; she was so excited — and now it was like it didn’t matter.

The men on the screen, clad in their windbreakers, are talking about a woman who the shorter one, Jack, is going to fuck in Italy — confirming to each other that she has no choice in the matter. The guilt wracked back into her. She was giving Arthur a choice, right? She wasn’t that bad, was she?   


She could hear the shadows trying to start up during the scenes in the Slaughtered Lamb. The behavior of the patrons were triggering his panic. He’d been where they were, saying the wrong thing, being looked at like he was nothing. Ushered out. Arthur managed to keep it under control.   


_ You can’t do it again, not here, it’s supposed to be quiet. _   


Jack and David are back on the moors now. Surrounded by darkness and lit by a silver dollar moon. The suspense is exquisite. David trips and asks Jack for help. He reaches for his friend. Entering left of the frame at appropriately inhuman speed, the wolf smashes into Jack, and startled screams rolled through the theater as he screams for David.   


One person wasn’t screaming.   


At first Arthur sounded like he was choking, but the laughter spilled out of his mouth despite his protests. Carrie looked at him and froze. She was appropriately horrified because now that she was this close she could see he was  _ definitely _ in pain from this.    


_ You ARE disgusting, He iS HURTING DO SOMETHING DO SOMETHING CARRIE HELP HIM! _ _   
_

She was brought out of the paralysis by the person sitting in front of them turning to glare at him. Arthur gasped — she could feel the pink at her back from the memories, but killed it for the first time — and began to shake his head at them, pleadingly. They opened their mouth to say something she could tell was going to be rude by the sneer on their face and she kicked the back of their chair to get their attention. Settling her face into a cold scowl, she mimed with two fingers to keep their eyes on the screen. They shrink back and do as they’re told.   


David is running back to Jack, having fled from the wolf. Jack’s screaming mixed with Arthur’s laughter and Carrie couldn’t stand it. She slowly leaned over him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, and with her fingers, trace small figures in his hair above his right ear. Taking his left hand in her right, she gently stroked the sides of his fingers and leaned in so close that the heat from her voice softly whispering to him made him shiver again.   


“It’s okay, Arthur, It’s alright...”

Meanwhile Jack is screaming. “IT’S GOT ME!”   


Arthur could almost hear her smile up against his ear.   


“I’ve got you.”

  
Arthur melted against her.  


_ Why is she doing this? _ _   
_

He was able to calm down, but she didn’t remove herself from him. It was thrilling that she was touching him, but nerve wracking. He absentmindedly let his head rest against hers, his energy slowly depleting. She almost nuzzled his neck as she made herself more comfortable on him. Those warm vines were knotting around his cock and he was miserably hard from this. She was still stroking his fingers.    


David’s in the hospital now, and the stark colors of the scene change took Arthur back to his time institutionalized. The doctors in the movie are just as dismissive as his own had been. A flame of rage flared up in the back of Arthur’s head. He drifted into a negative thoughtscape before a sharp silence in the film broke his attention.    


David is watching the nurse approach his own bed.    


Arthur had had dreams like this, where he could see himself outside of himself, but this —   


With a roar, the screen cuts to David in bed, but with a new visage: a be-fanged and rotten sneer, yellow eyes set in dark sockets on a white face.  
Carrie gasped and jolted against him. This killed his negative thoughts and he looked at her. She was beaming at the screen.  


“That was cool,” she whispered up at him, without looking.    


A goofy smile worked its way onto his mouth. The blue light of the screen illuminated her face. She was beautiful.    


Gunshots ring out and Arthur jumped. Carrie’s face folded a little, and she suddenly leaned away from him and toward the screen and laughed.    


“What?” She rasped out in a loud, disbelieving whisper.    


Chaos was erupting on screen. Bizarre mutated beings in facist uniforms are decimating David’s family. It’s a gruesome and bloody sequence, but Carrie’s giggling was settled low like she was trying to control it but couldn’t. Arthur kept watching her.   


The sequence ends, and David is back with his nurse. She comforts him and goes to open a curtain. Another Facist appears and stabs her. David wakes up, and groggily cries out, “Holy shit.”

Carrie lost it. Her laugh sounded like a witch’s cackle and he was under her spell. She clamped her lips between her teeth to stifle it. He couldn’t stop looking at her. Her eyes suddenly popped and her jaw dropped. Arthur turned his eyes back to the screen and it’s Jack. He’s completely eviscerated at the neck. Flesh hangs off him in lurid chunks and little jagged edges flap around the viscera on display from his throat. His face is horribly gashed, but he’s smiling.   


“Can I have a piece of toast?” he asks David.    


Carrie sank back against Arthur and covered her mouth with her hand.    


David is horrified, talking about if Jack is real or not and it made Arthur anxious. It was too familiar.   


“David! You’re hurting my feelings,” Jack whines.    


Her eyes looked deranged and she was rocking through what he could tell was the worst attempt to kill another loud laugh. Arthur wished he could be her hand pressed against her lips.    


“I had no idea it would be like this,” she whispered against him.    


“You didn’t?” He shakily whispered back.    


“I’m so glad it’s funny,” she breathed, resting one of her hands on his knee. Arthur froze. He imagined  **her hand sliding up his thigh. The theater is suddenly empty and it’s just the two of them. Carrie’s placing soft kisses along his jaw up to his ear and her hand fiddles with his ** **belt. He’s drawing a hand down her face and bringing her to kiss him while she reaches for the vines.**   


“Life mocks me even in death,” Jack says to David.    


This brought Arthur back to the present. He’d never considered that that was a possibility.    


Jack explains the movie to his friend. He asks him to kill himself before he kills others, tells him to beware the moon.   


Carrie wasn’t laughing anymore. Arthur felt uncomfortable.    


The nurse named Alex gives David a place to stay. Seeing David try to make her laugh on the subway and receive scrutiny from others hit Arthur wrong. He shifted a little, trying to suppress another attack.   


“They’re definitely gonna frick,” Carrie murmurs to him mischievously.    


“You think?” His response is soft and incredulous.    


David points out to Alex that there’s only one bed. Alex comes clean. “I find you very attractive, and a little bit sad.”   


David urges her to go on.   


The sex scene only lasts a minute and 42 seconds, but it felt like hours. Arthur could feel precum dotting his shorts. A few times Randall had suggested they visit a porno theater, but he’d always turned him down because it was gross. Arthur had only ever used magazines.

Carrie had been used to porn but this was a new low. A slow sensuous scene that was centered on foreplay while she was sitting next to Arthur was probably going to be listed as her cause of death, she mused. She’d already touched him, but now she felt strange trying to do it. He’d dared to glance over at her during the scene and their eyes met. They both turned away, with a deep rouge resting on their faces.   


She didn’t speak again until the orange cat hissed at David. She scoffed. “Cats don’t sound like that.”   


Arthur snorted. She was right, they didn’t.   


Slowly she began to realign herself back to being physically close to him. He was silently praying she wouldn’t notice he practically had a whole campsite in his lap.    


The movie ran along, David being bored, Alex working. Then the moon. Carrie straightened herself out for the big reveal. Arthur mimicked her movement.   


David begins screaming.    


“JESUS CHRIST!”    


The celluloid flickered as he is clawing at his own head and shouting that he’s burning up. Carrie could hear a note of genuine laughter from Arthur as David is scrambling out of his clothes.   


Then David’s hand starts cracking and stretching and the two viewers were transfixed. The transformation scene is hellacious and unrelenting. Carrie put her hands on the sides of her face. Arthur couldn’t look away from this nightmare to see that her lips were pulled into a face of pure joy. All the hair on David’s body grows as he snaps around screaming.   


“I DIDN’T MEAN TO CALL YOU A MEATLOAF, JACK!”   


Carrie inhaled sharply. Struggling to contain a bubble of laughter, she fell against the back of her seat, her eyes still wide and her face frozen in a moment of glee. By the time David’s face rips and contorts into its canine completion, Arthur realized with gratitude that his erection was gone, but Carrie had no such luck. The sounds of breaking celery and wet latex had her swimming through a sea of her own arousal.

She leaned against Arthur again and gazed at him. He met her eyes. New growth surrounded his chest and he felt like he loved her. She would’ve been lying if she’d said she couldn’t feel something too.


	5. Run

A black sky greeted them as they exited the theater. 

“Okay, correct me if I’m wrong, but that porno really added to the movie. Who does that? Who puts a joke porn in a Hollywood movie?” Carrie had a teasing lilt to her voice. Arthur could hear it.

“Guess the director is a pervert.” He teased back.

“I can sympathize.” She practically purred.

_ Why did she say that? _ It was a dumb thing to ask himself. He knew why she said it, but insecurity was heavy in his head. 

_ Oh so she’s the leading on type. That’s gonna go real well for you, Art. _

It was Randall’s voice in his head. He shuddered and she stared. 

There was a big full moon hanging right behind Arthur’s head, crowning him to her as a Lord of Night, her own personal King of Sin.

“It’s so funny that your name is Arthur…” She trailed off breathlessly.

_ Why does he have to be so cute? _ _   
_

“Oh yeah?” His brows rose and—goddamn it, the bugs were back in her chest.

“Yeah… ‘cause you look like a work of art.”

For a moment, Arthur looked like he’d been hit with a brick. It had been so long since anyone had even given him the time of day, let alone complimented him.

He laughed. It was a rougher episode than the one she had helped him get through in the movie. He doubled over and Carrie instantly crouched next to him and put a hand on his back.

“Fuck! My bad Artie, I’m always so fucking forward—it’s super fucking inconsiderate, Arthur, I am so sorry.”

“_ Artie” _ _   
_

It rang in from her rapid speech and hung in his mind like dust floating through a sun beam. Were they already to the pet name phase? Does one date mean that?

“HELLO!”

Both Arthur and Carrie jumped, shaken from the moment. It was a man, maybe. It was hard to tell under the grime and blood. They were utterly disheveled. Their windbreaker was ripped at the shoulder, downy feathers spilling out of it like stuffing from a busted toy. And the filth. It was as if they had rolled around in one of the mountains of garbage that had been littering the city since the strike had begun. Their eyes met hers and she realized they were bleeding profusely from several broken spots in their cheeks and jaw.

“C-Can we help you? I don’t have any change, the movie is a flat fee—” it was the only thing she could think to say. Arthur was still hacking out laughter and they were still close to the ground. Carrie felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up and she could feel how Arthur was losing his ability to breath.

“—Oh no I don’t need change. I’ve already changed.” The person was beaming. Something unhinged lingered in their eyes, eyes that didn’t blink. Arthur’s hands were on his throat, but Carrie felt like she was the one choking. The person was drooling out of the sides of their mouth, but they appeared unbothered.

** _BAD._ **

Instinct had announced it to both of them at the same time; clear as day, despite the darkness.

“I just wanna tell you about our leader!” They announced to the pair. “Have you heard the good news??” They were crouching now, right at eye level with Carrie, but Arthur was still looking at the concrete, trying to stop his fit. Carrie’s flight mode was activated when the smell of rotten sausage and pus hit her, seeping from the wounds on the person’s face. She immediately hooked her arm under Arthur’s and hauled him to his feet. He took a gulping breath.

Arthur wished he was dead. He wished he could tell this person to fuck off, to leave them alone, to put on a big macho show for Carrie so she could see how tough and unafraid he was ...But he was afraid. He couldn’t stop laughing and he wished he hadn’t been so glad she was holding him up. He should be fighting this idiot, not counting on her for protection.

_ A _ real _ man could’ve handled this, Art. She knows that. _ _   
_

It was Randall again. Always there to shit on him, even when he wasn’t.

Carrie started to shuffle around the wanna-be proselytizer. Arthur had wrapped his arm around her waist to support himself. Carrie sighed inside her head.

_ It was going so well. _

“I think we’re good, man. Hail Satan and all that.” She said with her submission grin.

_ Read me and leave, you fuckwit. _ Anger was starting to bubble up in her. How dare this asshole. She was on a date, like, an actual date that she hadn’t even had to plan. What the fuck was this jackass trying to do here? 

“Our King is greater than any devil you know, ma’am.” The prophet stood, his eyes wet and weepy, but still—he wouldn’t blink.

“I don’t know man! Ha-ha, he’s done pretty good for me so far!” She was trying to navigate her heaving crush around them, but they were stepping backwards to keep ahead.

“The Rat King offers you everything you could imagine, sister!” They cry. It’s a happy sound, but it makes Carrie sick.

“Buddy if I wanted to worship a rat, I’d go to Disneyland. Please let us pass.” She starts to press forward, but the Prophet steps towards them.

“No. You need to pray with me.”

Carrie scowls and Arthur is almost groaning through the guffaws of his attack. “No, We need to go home,” she says sternly.

“N-NO! YO-OU NE-EED TO PRA-AY WITH ME NOW!” When the Prophet spoke, their neck clenched and spasmed. Foaming spittle flew from their teeth landed on her face and Arthur’s jacket. Carrie blanked. She looked at Arthur, who was crying now. He didn’t look back at her. She leaned into his ear and muttered a grave whisper.

“Artie, can you laugh and run at the same time?”

He finally looks at her, bleary and shivering. He nodded. It broke her heart and her anger reached a white peak. She imagined it was what her favorite character had felt on prom night, before she’d slaughtered her enemies with the power of her mind. Carrie killed a soft giggle as her mind turned to thoughts of breaking this person’s neck with a glance. There was no time for fantasy right now; she couldn’t allow a distraction. She nodded back at him and, unable to see the future, pressed a kiss to his wrinkled forehead—just in case. A deep mauve pigment was imprinted where her lips were. Arthur sighed through a gnarled chuckle.

Carrie looked back to the Prophet and noticed she suddenly felt very calm. It felt like the back of her scalp had opened up like something from a sci-fi movie, her emotions pouring out of it, threatening to consume everything in their path. She narrowed her eyes at them to focus, and turned her emotions off.

“I’m listening.” It came out of her mouth flatly. 

The Prophet opened their mouth to speak, more fucking spit dribbling down the sides. They were swaying now, as if standing was a hassle and a chore.

“I’ll take you to him. He’ll love you. We’ll all love you.” The Prophet grabbed Carrie’s arm and yanked her, almost pulling her away from Arthur, but he flinched at the action, and she used him as an anchor to rip her arm back. Carrie made a gamble. She pulled one of her legs up towards her chest, and kicked the Prophet in the solar plexus. They doubled over, coughing, and the gamble paid off.

“RUN, NOW!” Her voice was shrill as it cut through the air, distress coating it like a brilliant candy apple.

They bolted together. Arthur’s considerable speed surprised her—or maybe she was just slow because of the goddamn leather pants she now wished she hadn’t worn. Still fleeing, she grabbed his hand.

“I need you to lead me!”

“What?!” His words were haggard from the cardio.

“TRUST ME!”

Carrie closed her eyes as she ran just behind him, praying she didn’t get decked by a stop sign or some other hazard.

The balance hit her like a cymbal crash and she could hear both of their **rough keylime breathing, thick with mucus from the cold air. ** She was unsure if the dread in her mind had killed the sounds of the city, but she was thankful for the quiet it offered. **Their footsteps beat splashes of carmine on the sidewalk. ** She couldn’t hear anything else. 

“FUCK!” She screamed and came out of the balance.

Arthur stopped, his lungs screaming at him.

“What what is it??” He was gasping.

“I can’t see them!” She spit venomously, hoping he could tell she was mad at herself.

“How could you see them?” He cried out in desperation.

“They’re back there!”

She sighed and leaned against a building.

“I mean—I can’t hear them. Normally I can…“ She paused, trying to catch her breath. “...I can hear things and know where they are. I can’t hear… whatever the fuck that was,” she huffed out.

“I don’t wanna say we’re safe, but we might be…”

Arthur stared at her for what seemed like a minute.

“You see things that you hear?” His voice was soft; ironically, it reminded her of praying.

She nodded. “Yeah, it’s pretty weird.”

Arthur looked away, like he was considering what she was saying. 

“I’m not crazy, Artie, I promise—”

“I didn’t think you were,” he interrupted.

They took a moment to just breathe. Carrie broke the silence.

“I’m gonna try again okay? There’s a chance they gave us a head start.”

“They? You think there’s more than one?” She could hear the panic in his voice. She smiled.

“He’ll love you. We’ll all love you.” She repeated the prophet’s words back to him. 

“Either that guy was delusional…” Arthur winced and hung his head as she continued, and it felt like she’d said the wrong thing.

“Or there’s a gang ...and I think it’s probably a gang,” she finished. Arthur coughed and an attack started all over again.

“Fuck, Artie…”

He was a shambling mess when she wrapped her arms around him. It wasn’t lost on him that his head was laid against her breasts due to the height difference, and he choked.

“Shhh, hey—hey,” but her words died in her throat as he looked up at her.  
  


Carrie was suddenly 13 years old again. She was at the lake, floating on her back and looking at an overcast sky. She closed her eyes to balance and let her body turn over. She dove deep, down to the lake bed, breathing out so she could stay under longer, letting her body twist and turn freely. She felt light and safe under the surface and she wished she could be there forever. A loud boom rippled through her sanctuary and she realized she had to breathe. The balance bloomed when she broke through the surface with beautiful emerald greens, broken by spires of seafoam and flecks of gold. 

_ Fleck _

His name brought her back to the present.

She didn’t need the balance to hear a tell-tale hum behind her. She knew the tune. It was old. She’d played it before—once with a school orchestra in another life, and again, in a more recent one, for a local ballet doing a show for Christmas.

“Artie…” she whispered. “I think they caught up.”

He craned his head to look over her shoulder and his eyes almost exploded out of his head. She made the mistake of looking back.  
There were about 5 of them. The stench was enough to make Carrie want to gag. Arthur was nauseous, but he was so used that from his meds he didn’t let it bother him. One of them had a kennel at their side and dilapidated street lamps left them backlit, cloaking them as black silhouettes.

“OUR KING DEMANDS FEALTY!” They had all said in unison, and Carrie turned around fully, moving her whole body in front of Arthur. He noticed.  
_You’re gonna let your girlfriend die? Wow.__  
_

He almost muttered for Randall to shut up, but he stopped himself, surprised he had any measure of composure given the circumstance. He did want to be strong for Carrie, even if it wasn’t working out that way.

“We should run again.” His voice was hot on her ear and she almost melted.

_Not the time, Slut_. _WE ARE IN DANGER!_ She chided herself.

“OUR KING WILL HAVE YOU!” They chanted together.

“Are we sure this isn’t a shared dream?” Her voice rattled, much to her chagrin.

“Could you dream up See You Next Wednesday?” Arthur couldn’t stop it before it slipped out. He was delirious.

Carrie wanted to laugh but all that came out was a whimper. She wanted to run but she was frozen. Arthur wanted to run, but he didn’t want to leave her.

The figure holding the kennel placed it in front of him, and unlatched the door.

“LONG LIVE THE KING!”

The Rat King appeared.

Traditionally, a “rat king” was just a bunch of normal rats which had been stuck in close quarters so long that their tails knot and grow together, leaving them unable to escape each other. But this? This was something else. It was a wet, hulking mass of fur and teeth. Sinewy tails whipped around in every direction, seemingly rising and falling out of its matted coat like a snake’s tongue peeping out and withdrawing to smell.

Carrie thought she was seeing its face, but it had so many eyes that couldn’t be right, it had to be—Another face rose to reveal itself with a gaping hiss. It looked like two heads had been welded together with fire on opposing sides of their faces. Four eyes, two throats. One mouth. Too many teeth for any self-respecting rat. Foamed spit boiled over out of its maw and the King’s men let out a rally cry. Arthur screamed, ripping Carrie from her stupor. She whipped around, and they fled.

_ The news really hasn’t done the Super Rats justi-FUCK THESE PANTS _ _   
_

Arthur faltered and almost fell behind as laughter started ripping through him.  
  
“FUCK THAT!” Carrie shouted and wrenched him behind her by his forearm. He slowed her down, but they were almost home, even if the skitters and squeaky roars sounded too close to know if they would make it. She felt every joint she’d ever smoked rolling through her lungs as they cried out for her to stop.

Arthur looked back and stopped dead. Carrie almost fell. He shoved her towards a dark alley and spun her so her back was to him. He clamped a hand over her mouth and shushed her.

_ Artie this is so dumb we are going to get killed _ — 

The rat’s sounds were getting closer and he ushered her deeper into the alley. The beast entered their vision, and a closer look revealed patches of fur and flesh flaking off of it in bloody clumps. Carrie wanted to vomit, but she refused to make this date any worse than it was by puking on him. Then the thing paused to sniff. Arthur could swear it was looking at them and involuntarily clamped onto Carrie harder.

She closed her eyes and she was back in the balance.

The rat was saffron. What an odd color for a rat. Her mind raced. What did Mom say about rodents—what did she say? She searched her mind.  
Her mother was giving her a wry look, while she herself was perched on a chair. 

_ You know they’re more scared of you than you are of them. _ _   
_

Arthur’s heartbeat was fluttering like he was a fox caught by dogs. She could feel it radiate over herself and a resolve took hold of her.  
She bit his hand, not too hard but just enough. He inhaled sharply to keep from yelping and released her. Carrie ran toward the rat, not looking back to see the look of betrayal on his face. She raised her arms out to her side and bent her fingers into imitations of claws.

“RRRAHHHHH” It was a guttural sound, one she usually saved for mixed episodes that fell in the middle of manic energy and depressive negativity, but this was a special situation.

The rat perked up, its ears flopped down and it attempted to scatter, leaving more tattered masses of fur and blood as it tried to escape itself. She kicked it hard into the middle of the street and it shrieked in pain.

“SERVES YOU RIGHT YOU FUCKIN’ SHIT! I’M TRYING TO SHOW THIS MAN A GOOD TIME AND YOU WANNA FUCK IT UP? FUCK YOU!” She straightened her shoulders out and began to march towards the rat, and much to her delight it collected itself and fled from her. She turned to face the Rat-Knights and Arthur was awestruck. 

_ She’s showing you up _ — 

“Fuck off Rand-aalll,” He muttered to himself.

The full moon lit her up and he could feel his heart swell.

“THAT’S RIGHT CUNTS, TRY ME AGAIN! I’M FUCKING CRAZY! I’LL EAT YOUR MOTHER! I’M THE GODDAMN _WOLF MAN!_”  
Carrie howled at the moon. It was fucking weird.

Arthur leaned against the brick wall at the entrance of the alley. He crossed his arms over his chest and smiled.

_ Wow. _

It was his own voice that he heard. It was a comfort.


	6. Going Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two idiots trigger involuntary responses from each-other in a broken elevator.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your comments, Kudos, and bookmarks. I haven't published a fic since Dark Knight was in theaters, so writing this has been concurrently a big deal and a lovely experience. The current Joker fandom has been nothing but kind and supportive and it's just cool. Are you having a good time? Cause I'm having a good time!!

They both almost collapsed into the elevator when they finally got there—dazed, baffled, and out of breath. The formerly enticing grindings of her once favorite machine passed her by like dust. Arthur sank to the floor, balancing on his heels. The silence was heavy, punctuated by the sound of creaking joints. He was the first to break it.

“Awooo…” It was little more than a whisper. It was also very cute.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m the big bad wolf.” She scoffed at the image it conjured, but smiled, deeply enthused. Outbursts weren’t a rarity for her, but she’d been nervous that Arthur might’ve gotten the wrong idea about her. Instead he seemed happy with what she did. Those kinds of episodes didn’t usually end with praise and that felt good. Maybe too good.

“Oh? Arrre you... gonna blow my house down?” His “r” rolled a little, his tone almost sultry, like he’d mustered a fleeting plume of confidence from somewhere.

“If you play your cards right,” she replied in her movie star voice to encourage the flash of personality.

Fuck, Carrie could just  _ die _ looking at him. Deep lines and dark circles at times seemed forced upon his face, as if he was being twisted and pulled by strings he couldn’t escape. He was  **helpless** to something that had aged him prematurely, opening him open to pointless cruelty. Myriad visions hit her in rapid succession: Arthur being struck. Arthur being kicked. ** Arthur bleeding from his nose and mouth. Arthur underneath her asking her for mercy. Arthur begging her not to stop—**

_ Power is the point. They want to feel power and they sense his weakness, so they use him for it. Just like you want to do. _ She shook off the ugly thought and considered how she might further reward the object of her obsession.

Her voice had a dreamy quality, like she was playing for an audience. He could almost feel them like a cloud of smoke, washing over him, swimming behind his shoulders and surround him. Arthur giggled and looked away, hiding his blushing face against the palm of his hand. For a second, he felt safe, but a sharp fear bored into him like a slender darning needle shoved straight into the base of his skull. He wasn’t allowed to feel safe. His smile froze into something fake, and he hoped she didn’t notice.

Carrie was the next to speak. “I don’t know about  _ you _ , but I doubt I’ll be able to sleep tonight.” Suddenly feeling very awkward, she wished she had something in her hands. Echoes of those ugly thoughts returned to her in stereo, and the  ** _look on Arthur’s face _ ** wasn’t helping ** _._ ** She leaned against the veneered wall of the elevator carriage, her hands trying to find a home in her pockets. Illusory pockets, she remembered too late. Just vanity stitching. She prayed he hadn’t seen her palm her hips in vain.

“I don’t know how you  _ could _ sleep after that,” Arthur mumbled through a stiff smile, still not looking at her. He reached into his actual, functional pocket to pull out his cigarettes. The pack had crumpled during their daring escapade and when he withdrew one of them, it was crooked and bent. He scowled at it and offered her the box. She tried to slide down to the floor so she could be at his eye level to take one, but the goddamn pants were sticking to her sweat-covered legs. 

“I hate these fucking pants.” She put her hands out.

Arthur differed in his opinion of her pants. He tossed her the box of cigarettes and she caught it. Legs were practically all he could see when he looked at her from his vantage point closer to the floor. He looked away again to keep his eyes from lingering too obviously.

Just then, with a loud clunk from above and a struggling whine, the elevator stopped. The ringing of an alarm bell congratulated them on their fortune. The lights went out. They both sighed at the same time. Carrie lit a cigarette, her face briefly illuminated. At first he was sure she’d caught him staring that time—no, her eyes probably hadn’t adjusted. He caught a glimpse of a smile around the filter.

Courage overtook him and Arthur couldn’t stop himself. “You could always take them off,” he suggested, not recognizing his own voice as he said it.

Just her brows shot up, her smile unchanged as she clicked the lighter shut. Inky darkness returned, obscuring her expression. She didn’t say anything at first while his eyes adjusted to reveal only the cherry of her cigarette drawing lazy shapes in the dark. It stopped moving a little above the spot he remembered her face had been. He tried to figure out where she was, but he didn’t wonder long.

“Arthur, are you trying to get me out of my clothes?”

She was right in his ear, her own voice a parody of the tone he had used. Just a touch deeper than normal; too airy to be anything but sensual, maddening, but still  **hers.** The vines he’d felt in the theater were reaching out again, stroking his ribs from the inside and filling him with all the things they’d warned him not to let out. She was  **here** —hopefully—and she was too good—far far too good at getting him comfortable. Red flags from his past were waving, urging him to look harder for the thing he was missing, the big punchline, except this time he felt like he could shut them down. But a line of thought interrupted his near triumph.

If that’d been  _ him _ attempting a seductive crawl across a dark, cramped space like this, he would surely have given himself away trying to find where she was. Though the brief thought of her being receptive to this (she’d been nothing but receptive thus far) made his face flush, it didn’t stop him from analyzing what had happened.  _ How did she _ —

He remembered what she had told him between panting breaths on the street, about seeing things by hearing things.

_ Holy shit, she can HEAR me. _

“It’s only our first date…” This time he felt her words on his neck, a warm giggle in her throat. Pricks of heat rolled down the sides of his neck and over his back. He heard her shuffle around a bit. Paranoia tightened its clutches on him and Arthur wondered if she could hear him shifting around,  **can she hear his clothes move, how much has she heard already—**

The emergency light finally flickered on, flooding the cabin with an unsettling red hue. Carrie was across from him now, her eyes gleaming, head tilted down a little, teeth on display. It was a different smile than the ones he’d seen before; more than alluring, it seemed...  _ expectant _ . Panic surged through him.

_ I really shouldn’t play with him like this _ , Carrie thought.  _ Oh well. _

Arthur exhaled with a hitch. The air was heavy. The relaxed atmosphere from surviving their ordeal had abandoned them.

Carrie’s expression faded as he curled into himself, but his attempts to stifle the laughter were useless. She tried to inch closer to him but an unusual sensation in one of her legs caused her to flop down on her side next to him and she realized too late that **the sound** **was** **everywhere**. The acoustics of the elevator had produced a reverberating laugh track that rang harshly in her ears. She tried to cover them with her hands but it was no use. She could feel him rocking back and forth on the floor and she was **hearing it inside her head and it won’t stop**.

It was complete sensory overload. She fought it as best she could, but with no escape this time, surrender was her only option. She caved to it and allowed herself to balance out.

Instantly, she was on fire. Her spine was white hot and burning its way forward through her body, sinking into her clit like a glowing blade being quenched in oil. Her arms went limp and her hands landed above her head when she rolled onto her back. A vile suggestion whispered to her that Arthur wasn’t the weak one, that  _ she _ was, and the thought drew out a moan she wished she hadn’t heard. Anything that loud meant that he definitely heard it.

She struggled to snap out of her living nightmare. Hyperventilating and biting her lip, she tried to stand, but her quivering knees cooperated only poorly. She was almost upright when she was interrupted by the worst thing she’d ever heard. 

“I’m—HAHAHAAAA” I’m—So—rry.”

Looking at him had been the real mistake, because  **Arthur was a fucking kaleidascope and he was ** ** _dazzling_ ** . He’d moved beyond the concept of a rainbow, she decided. No, this was a spinning hypnotist’s wheel pushing out an endless whirl of color, sending splatters and splashes to the barriers of the carriage, leaving them coated yet outlined their original shape. It reminded her of both Warhol painting she’d seen in a colleague's home once and an old friend’s neon pour paintings.

She was trying to keep tabs on everything she could see, drunk on the visions and sensations he was supplying her. Wakes of old joy and visions of futures once possible, now impossible, that she longed to return to and she was underwater again.

**Black.Pink.Gold.White.Red.Orange.Blue.Green** ** _.SILVER._ **

Silver made her falter the first time she saw it. It knocked her flat on her back the second time. The quivering in her legs became a dreadful shaking and she watched in delighted terror as the cracking violet electricity whipped its way up her thighs.

“fuckFuckFUCKNOT—”

_ She’s so melodic. _ Arthur made sure to savor the sound of her as well as he could over his own cries. Pain intermittently throbbed deep in their ears as their most loathed traits met at uneven ebbs and flows in a woefully incorrect duet.

Inside her, the shockwaves collided with the sinking heat and Carrie  **yelled,** breaking their already disjointed series of accidental harmonies. She looked down; another mistake. Her body appeared translucent under the red bulb flickering above them—she could see her blood moving, coursing around herself like molten ingots driven by the tilt of a crucible.

A condescending voice that wasn’t hers emerged from the past and paid tribute to its memory, it shocked her.

_ You’re jizzing your pants for a clown under funhouse lighting. _

Attempting to knock loose the errant voice in her mind, Carrie smacked the back of her head against the floor too hard, bursting a blood vessel in her left eye—but how could she care with the shadows gathering above her face. The voice wasn’t stopping for anything, though.

_ What is this? Fucking amateur hour?  _ Her ex-girlfriend hisses to her, and the tension over her shatters.

“FUCK!”

Carrie’s joints cracked as her arms stiffened, reaching in vain for something to hold on to. Her back arched up sharply, as if she was being pulled apart, and her jaw nearly snapped out of its socket as her orgasm fell upon her like a vice, piercing her so deeply that the nerves under her teeth stung. Her shoulder popped slightly and she swore she could feel Arthur’s hands under her skin, spreading out the last color he gave her over her fucking bones. She collapsed back, heaving, and actually toast. Her vision was spotty, and a little mottled in one eye. Arthur’s face was above hers, and his hands were on either side of her face, barely caressing her. A small cough was all that was left of his convulsions.   


When it started, Arthur thought at first she was mad at him, what with the screaming and all that. Arthur wanted to hide more than anything in this moment. He’d already tried to make himself as small as possible to try and just  **compress** the attack, but it just ** wouldn’t stop** . She had her hands on her ears and he felt like he should  **die ** with how she was reacting to this, practically coming out of her skin like he was gouging her with a hot poker. Her calls felt so familiar and it hit him that he’d  **heard them before** .

He forced the thought back. This couldn’t possibly be **that**. So this was it, he concluded. This had to be the punchline. He didn’t know how all of this pretending was funny, but he’d sort of known this could never have been real. Retrospectively, it was obvious that this had always been some mean trick. Who would be that nice to him? _Nobody._

Arthur gagged on another chuckle and tried to apologize in an attempt at bowing out gracefully—what else could he do?—but her response was his own name whispered with a moan followed by a shout that sounded like it was trying to plead with him. When she slammed her own head against the floor, it startled him and he gasped hysterically and clamped his teeth into his own fist, trying to shield her from his racket while he attempted to scramble toward her.

It didn’t help. Arthur was still laughing, he was just laughing and bleeding now. He mimed out cradling her head in front of his lap, trying to decide if he should attempt to actually touch her right now, but the laughter was getting in the way, and he didn’t decide fast enough.

He was leaning over her when she swore very loudly beneath him and her whole body  _ contorted. _ For a split second, as his mind skirted the movie they’d watched that night, he wondered if she might be changing into an animal, and found himself running his hands over her stomach and chest to try and calm whatever was about to burst through her. It hadn’t even occurred to him that his hands had grazed her breasts until she was dissolving into a shuddering murmuring mess, and he hoped this had been some kind of bizarre seizure all along. Something painfully hot gnawed at him and told him if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, but before he can try to ward it off, the shame that he’d thought it at all set in. 

Managing to take a deep breath, his hands came to rest on the sides of her face. His attack gave way to a series of coughs he tried to bury in his shoulder. Her eyes flutter open. The left one bore a splotch next to its iris that threatened to invade the rest of her white sclera, but the red emergency light veiled its true appearance.

“Carrie?” Arthur asks softly. The way she shivers when he says her name only adds to his concern.

_ Shit. Just… Fucking shit, dude. _

“Hi, Arthur,” she says, voice cracking.

“What was that?” He stroked a strand of hair out of her face.

“ _ I’m so sorry.” _ Her right hand reached up to brush his hand over its place on her face.

“What was that?” he attempted again.

“I… have a condition,” she began, but it felt stupid, and the rest of her sentence begged to come out.

_ You can’t tell him what happened. He’ll know there’s something wrong with you. You’ve been using him this whole time, just trying to get a laugh out of him. It’s all you do, leech and suck and take. You know what it makes you? It makes you selfish and if you tell him- He’ll know. He’ll know and he’ll  _ ** _hide_ ** _ from you. _

He lowered his face a bit closer, a cascade of hair falling to frame his face. He tapped on the side of her mouth twice.

“Carrie? Are you here?”

She blinked a little. That far away look of hers was probably familiar to him by now. Something in her vision was funny, though with everything doused in red, it was hard to tell exactly what was wrong. But she could see  _ him _ . My, he was very close.

“Present.”

Her voice sounded wrong. His face glowered over her like she’d given a code for him to crack. She tried to deflect it with a curious expression.

For a while, they stayed locked up like that together on the floor, nearly daring the other to prove something.

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” Arthur finally said.

“No.” It’s a soft rebuttal.

He’d already been rolling on a lurid teleplay in his head.  _ In an old black-and-white medical drama, she’s on her back, eyes wild, pinned to a hospital bed. Thick leather cuffs are drawn taut around her ankles and wrists. Longer straps cross over her body and hold her down. Her hospital gown, inappropriately splayed, only partially covers her. _

** _Doctor, what seems to be the trouble? _ ** _ Arthur says, entering from right frame, clad in all white and prepped for surgery. He’s a very serious doctor now, so he grabs her chart and looks it over. _

** _It appears the patient is suffering from hysterical nymphomania. _ ** _ A voice answers from out of frame. It sounds dubbed in. They’re alone. _

** _Oh no, _ ** _ he says flatly, boredom in his voice. He tosses the chart over his shoulder haphazardly.  _ ** _We know there’s only one solution for that. _ ** _ He can see his own gloved hand walk a pair of fingers up one of her legs. They shift open for him, and her gown, caught beneath her, retreats up her thigh _

It was her fingers walking over his knelt thigh he saw as his eyesight came back into focus, and he recognized she’d been touching him. She’d rolled onto her stomach, and propped herself up to face him properly. His eyes fell and he reluctantly allowed himself a look down her blouse. He indulged himself too long.

“Arthur, are you here?” Her voice sounded correct this time. She looked so apologetic and  _ humiliated _ that it hurt him. Carrie’s eyes were brimming with tears, but whether they were sympathetic or some thicker emotion, he couldn’t tell. All Arthur could see was a doe-eyed maiden, trembling before him. He felt weak.

“I was saying, I have a condition… and if you follow me home, I’ll tell you all about it.”


	7. Interaction

  
Arthur swallowed hard. “You want me to come home with you?”

A tear finally freed itself from the edge of her bloody eye when she nodded. The elevator’s alarm bell trilled and the red light they’d been under flicked back to its usual dull yellow. The extent of her injury revealed, Arthur was taken aback. “Your eye!”   


She started to scowl in confusion—an appropriate response—but was halted mid-scrunch.

“Oh—OH WOW! Ow! Like actually ow, wow.” She started laughing and an inkling of relief passed over him.   


“Your hand!” She mimics his cry back to him.   


Oh. Right. The hand. He’d bitten into it. How had he forgotten that? Carrie took his hand in hers and brought the bleeding wound up to her mouth. She planted a deviously-intentioned kiss over it, pulling tendrils of blood into her mouth.   


_ What the fuck? _   


It was the only track his mind could play as the elevator started ratcheting up again. She smiled at him and stood. He moved with her at her invitation. The doors finally cranked open, and after—fifteen minutes? An hour?—they were out in the hallway.

Carrie lead him down the hallway to her door. Arthur was asking her questions, but he couldn’t feel himself think.   


_ “ _ A—Are you sure?” He was so nervous. He had to look like some kind of lunatic right now; this still had to be some kind of trick, or maybe an honest mistake—   


“Yeah I’m sure. I want you at my house Artie.”    


“I mean I live next door, I can just—”   


She’d been bent over her lock, keys in hand, when she glared up at him playfully. More blood fell over her cheek and she winced before muttering a swear. He knew he was going with her.

Once inside, Carrie immediately shed her purse and jacket on the floor. “Just drop your stuff anywhere. I’ll be right back.” She glided with long steps over the creaking floor boards to her bedroom door and disappeared behind it. Arthur wondered if he should follow her, assuming this was what it appeared to be—the jury was still out on that—but the idea of her shrieking and shouting at him to leave turned him to stone.

This was the first time he’s been inside a woman’s apartment. It didn’t look like what he’d expected. There were no plush fur throws, stylish furniture, velvet curtains, or pictures of friends. Instead, she had a threadbare reproduction sofa surrounded at its back and side with scraps of what he thought was a blender (maybe a stand mixer) and various tools strewn about the floor.

A collection of strange electronics that looked like they might break if he touched them surrounded a coffee table. The coffee table was obviously used as a workstation, given the amount of loose screws and washers on it. This was arranged in front of a T.V. that was flanked with several shelves lined with what he knew were microphones.   


Carrie’s voice drew him back from his quick cataloguing of her home.   


“Arthur? Don’t touch my babies, or my beloved. The bar is fair game, though.” He froze. Were there people here? Who’s her beloved?

He turned around and didn’t see anyone. A fear grew over his back and reached for him from behind his ears. He turned around and found, parked next to the door, a cart holding a modest display of liquor on it. Perusing it, his eyes landed on a half-empty green bottle with a heavy dark liquid inside it.   


_ Her favorite. _   


The rest seemed nearly full, except for the gin, which had a masking tape label with its contents hastily scribbled on it in sharpie. It was down to about two-thirds.    


_ Second favorite. _   


When she returned to him, refreshed and repaired, Arthur thought he might faint at the sight of her. Of course she’d changed clothes. Her tall frame was clad in black, a long low-cut nightgown draped her form suggestively, layered under a dark chiffon robe with long sleeves that pooled around her arms like a sorcerer’s cloak. Around her waist a length of velvet ribbon cinched the robe. She’d applied a disorganized square of gauze over her eye and secured it in place with a black, pharmacy-stock eyepatch. Her barrel curls from earlier had been brushed into waves around her face. His eyes fell on her lips and he noticed that she’d touched up her lipstick.

He had shifted his observant gaze from her apartment and refocused entirely on her.  _ That’s a lot of effort to look so relaxed. _   


He pushed his uninjured hand back through his hair and cleared his throat, lingering for a second where she’d kissed him during the rat chase. Some of the mauve pigment she’d left came off under his thumb when he pulled it back.

Carrie looked him over, and her exposed eye landed on his increasingly bloody sleeve. “Okay so…” Her voice trailed off, and Arthur caught sight of what she was holding. It was a battered old first aid kit, barely clinging to its own hinges, having obviously seen better days.   


“The ointment has a fly in it. That’s not even a joke, there’s actually something super gross in the ointment, so we have to do this... field medic style? It’s gonna get weird, so please don’t freak out when you bleed on me.”   


She seemed painfully nervous and Arthur wished he wasn’t hard again. The highs and lows from all this blood rushing and releasing was too fucking much. That said, if this wasn’t a trick, it was going better than expected. She looked like a prettier version of girls he’d seen painted on the sides of vans, and the eyepatch really lent itself to that image.   


“I might want to bleed on you, you don’t know.”   


Her mouth twitched, and she drew in a shallow breath. “I can’t flirt right now, or I won’t be able to fix you hand.”   


She was very matter of fact when she said it. It didn’t hurt him to hear it.    


All he said was “Ah.” in response. One of those vines had settled around the center of his chest. It was coiled like a snake, and teased at the back of his clavicle with a leaf. She’d admitted she was flirting with him.

Carrie could feel a shadow climbing in him, and she smiled while examining his hand. She wished she wasn’t twitching internally at the sight of his blood, but she permitted herself a cheap thrill when she noticed saliva gathering in her mouth. She had to swallow before she pressed on, struggling to keep her devious intentions at bay.   


“Okay. I have a plan.” She said this aloud, more to herself than him, and followed it up by wiping her lipstick off on her own arm, regretting the waste of color. Truthfully, Carrie had no medical training—like, at all—but she was always a firm believer in faking it until she made it.

She reached for a bottle labeled “POISON” from behind the vodka on her cart and ripped out the cork with her teeth. She spat the cork over her shoulder at her refrigerator and took a few slow deep breaths. “This is going to be just awful for us.”

Even with just one eye, she could tell it made him uncomfortable to be seen like this. Before he could say anything, she took a short swig and held the booze in her mouth and, oh—ohman, it fucking  ** _sucked._ ** Instantly, she knew she should’ve warned him better before she started this, but if she didn’t act right then, she wasn’t going to act at all, and impulse had her by the cunt tonight so there would be no winners here.

She took Arthur’s hand gently, her face twisted into an urgent plea because having a mouthful of pure grain alcohol feels like having a hot coal that’s steaming all of your spit out of existence and there’s really only one face someone can make for that. She pressed her lips to the wound again, made a small vacuum and opened her mouth around his bite. Arthur yelped and tried to recoil, but she was stronger than him and she held him firmly in place while she hummed against his open skin.

She finally released him and he looked at her like she was pure evil. Carrie couldn’t see his face, however, because she’d moved on to the next task, having spun back to the kitchen sink already and spat out her liquid nemesis. Her mouth was on the faucet as she swished and spit as much of it out as she could, trying to restore her mouth to any texture that wasn’t a crispy, wilted flower. She attempted to tell him something, but it came out as a wet gargle and a cough.

He laughed, in an almost disconnected way, like he was fully in denial that any of this was real. She finally regained proper feeling in her mouth, and rose to catch her breath.   


“Sorry—Don’t touch it, it’s sanitized. I think.”   


“What the fuck?” His voice was tainted with a mix of delight and annoyance, but sounded almost over-produced, like he had a secret. She was thrilled that his reaction hadn’t been anger. How disappointing it would have been for her had she been forced to harm him after everything they had been through together.   


“99% Pure Alcohol. It’s really not ideal, but works in a pinch—also, we aren’t done.” She was back in the first aid kit, rummaging around. She managed to find some bandages that didn’t look brittle or ancient, and waited for him to return his hand to her. Reluctantly, he give it back, and she started to manipulate the skin around the wound until it was as closed as it could be. He was hissing through his teeth, so she tried to be more careful.

The elevator incident had taken a lot out of her, and she’d been essentially running on fumes since she came in front of him. Arthur couldn’t know how much effort went into not leaning against him and asking him to stay over. Hammond had always been a wonderful partner, but she couldn’t lay her head on Hammond’s chest and let him stroke her hair. She’d tried it once and earned a tangled mess for her efforts. Carrie affixed the final bandages in place and exhaled happily.   


“All better.”

The wound still stung, and Arthur held onto his own hand, applying pressure to appease it. She looked very pleased with herself.  _ Sadistic? _ “Thanks.”

Something was wrong here.  _ Getting undressed is a faux pas, but drinking someone’s blood on a first date is fine.  _ Maybe tonight would make for a good joke, after they were married. He couldn’t make that type of joke until he was sure people wouldn’t use it against her, and they couldn’t do that if he made her an honest woman first.

His eyes were traveling over her when something low inside him told him that, given how deep the plunge of her gown’s neckline was, she was already fairly undressed. The memory of watching her fall to pieces with his name in her mind was surreal to relive. The way she looked up at him made him feel out of sorts. He was used to not knowing what to do with himself, but this was an extreme. The wound still burned from her nursing, too. He wasn’t quite over that.   


She offered him a drink and he declined, citing how he can’t drink on his medication for fear of interference. She agreed that he shouldn’t, and shared that she probably shouldn’t either for the same reasons. She poured a small drink for herself anyway and invited him to sit with her. Arthur was decidedly on edge now. Maybe wrong wasn’t the right word, conspiratorial seemed to fit the situation better.    


“Are you seeing someone?” He asked suddenly.    


“Only Hammond,” she replied casually, tossing a thumb over the back of the couch to her beloved organ.   


Arthur’s mouth formed a small “o” of realization. Of course! Duh! He’d heard her playing through the wall so many times. How could he forget?   


_ Available. _   


“Do you play for a church?”   


She laughed loudly.   


_ Not religious. _   


“Nooononono. I play for myself, and sometimes friends… Mostly I play to make sure he still works.”   


“I can hear you sometimes.” He thought he could see her blush.   


“Yeah , I mean—I’m great for like a daytime soap opera, or a midnight horror host—”   


“No, you deserve prime time. You should play on the Murray Franklin show, his theme has an organ in it.”   


“Pretty sure all themes have organs in them if you look in the musicians.” She smirked into her drink as she spoke.   


It was funny, but he didn’t let himself react. The last thing he wanted was to give them more attacks. He smiled back. “Do you have children?”   


She nearly choked.   


“Absolutely not. I mean they’re nice, but very overwhelming. The machines are my babies.”   


_ Unattached. _

Carrie offered Arthur the last of a joint over blithe small talk. He pretended to smoke, and she let him believe he’d convinced her he had. They both struggled to dance around the tension they’d built over the course of the evening. Carrie broke first.    


“How’d you cut your hand like that?”    


Arthur’s mouth drew into a hard line and his heel started to bounce.   


“I… didn’t. I bit too hard trying to shut myself up…” He paced his words out slowly.    


“I didn’t want to keep hurting you.” He coughed and she got the feeling the shadows were coming back for him. The locusts wailed.   


“Artie…you weren’t hurting me…”    


“No, I was, it’s fine, I know it’s loud and revolting, and I really—I really don’t—” She watched as the shadow climbed up his throat and a chortle emerged as a warning.    


Carrie hesitated. The prospect of a second orgasm was nice in theory, but from practice she knew the redistribution of her oxytocin would cause a major emotional crash and she didn’t want to scare him with that side of her just yet.   


“I have synesthesia.”

His torso was spasming and she prayed he could keep it together so she could.    


“Sometimes I can see sounds. I have to really focus if I want to use it to really  _ see _ things, but sometimes I can  feel sound. So when you have your attacks? I can _feel_ them.”   


He laughed again, louder, and she shivered. He saw and lurched forward, putting his hand on her satin coated knee. His lungs sounded flooded, like he was drowning to try and talk to her.   


“I’m—heHA—I don’t—hahaahaaaa—Carrie—”   


One of her hands found its way to his back, and the other one was stroking his hair. It was the same trick she tried in the theater. He doubled over. It wasn’t working as well this time. When he looked up at her, laughing and begging for her mercy with those lake green eyes, she worried that she might drown too.

With her tight grip cast around locks of his hair, he gasped in pain before his attack was muffled by her mouth. The vines seized him and bloomed. He nearly choked, but surprised himself by easing into her action. That wasn’t to say he wasn’t terrified. After all, he’d never done this before and he’s still laughing and  **oh god why** —   


She broke away to unburden herself and make sure he understood, very clearly.

“Arthur, It doesn’t feel  _ bad _ when you laugh around me…” she growled warmly into his ear, pulling just far enough away to bestow a pattern of insistent kisses under his ear and behind his jaw, before she returned to lay more of her intentions at his feet.   


“I don’t think anything you can do to me is ever going to feel  **bad** .”   


He shuddered as her words passed through him and made him moan or gasp, neither were sure, but the sound of it made her back arch worse than any giggles or gagging pinks could have caused, curving her vertebrae so deep it ached as she pressed herself against him harder. Another one of Arthur’s observations listed itself off for him.   


_ Braless.  _   


That was what sealed it for him, and Arthur finally relented to himself that there probably isn’t a punchline waiting to smack him back down anywhere near this couch. He knew he was cackling too loudly for anyone’s liking or comfort, but she was still  _ all over him, throwing herself at  _ ** _him._ ** His mind raced with scores of scabrous thoughts, negative, positive,  ** _all of them filthy _ ** before he snaked an arm around her waist, so tight Carrie considered briefly he might actually be here to look for a kidney. He’d had to make sure she was real again. It spurred her to loop one of her arms under his and wrap the other around his shoulder to drag him over her.

His tongue found the spots where she’d kissed him on her neck and he fucking  _ licked _ her. The wetness on her neck startled her and she gasped, but he took a page from her book and cut her off with another kiss. Adrenaline was shooting through him and his laughter grew more feverish and raspy. His lungs felt raw and his mouth was dry- but hers wasn’t, and he felt like he was  _ drinking _ from her with every sloppy kiss.

Her long legs latched around his hips like a prize belt and she urged him forward, making him grind against her. He broke away gulping air into his lungs, almost with a whine. His attack had finally died, but he was looking like he might collapse. She laughed airily, clearly pleased, but that was all he needed for his doubt to return. She caught a change in the look on his face and unwrapped her legs from around him.   


Arthur looked  ** _scared of her_ ** .   


_ He isn’t used to all this roughhousing, you idiot! Shit _ — _ SHIT! YOU BLEW IT!! _ _   
_

She sat up more and he backed up to let her, so they could face each other. _   
_

“I’m sorry if that was a lot…” She started to tell him, but her own thoughts stopped her.   


_ Oh how beautiful. Starting with a non-apology. _   


He shook his head, hair falling back in his face.   


“No, you’re great—I just haven’t… done this with anyone.” Riddled with shame, he wanted to rewind himself and take it back.   


_ Oh thank god, it’s fine, you’re just his first. _   


A live studio audience could’ve heard a pin drop inside that woman’s head before the weight of it truly hit her.   


** _You. Are. His. First._ **   


This vulnerability in this moment wasn’t lost on her, and her locusts must’ve believed they could serenade him for her as they tore through her chest. She had a strange fleeting vision of herself  _ standing in a line of well dressed women, and Arthur standing with his back to her, opening an envelope in front of a microphone. Confetti falls when he calls her name and she steps forward. Disembodied hands grant her a rhinestone tiara and a sash that reads “FIRST PLACE” in big block letters. He’s beaming at her, without a trace of pain in sight. He takes her gloved hand and they face each other before the crowd. _ _   
_

_ “Thank you, Arthur. What a lovely opportunity. It’s an honor and a privilege.” _ _   
_

_ “I know you’ll do great.” _ _   
_

How sweet. _   
_

_ The kiss they shared would’ve been so, too, as it’s such an intimate embrace. Instead a thick stream of blood pours from the ceiling onto them, soaking both parties through their clothes. The crowd shrieks and murmurs amongst themselves, but Carrie and Arthur don’t stop kissing. They open their eyes and glare into each other through it, escalating a more sinister passion. _ _   
_

_ That’s deeply romantic, but it plays as deeply unhealthy _ , Carrie decided as she phased out of her fantasy with a blink and searched for what he might want her to say.   


“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.” She was glad she landed on that, because she meant it. The person who’d introduced the phrase to her, hadn’t.   


Arthur felt both stuck and completely unglued. Being around Carrie felt like having someone brushing his hair. Some strokes were calming and he could lean into them, but other strokes hit knots and felt like they might tear his scalp apart. She smelled like strong laundry detergent and Old Spice, which seemed right—since when could a smell be correct? He was swimming in newly forged memories of how her hair brushed against the side of his face when he buried it in her neck and pairing it with the memories of the noises she’d made for him in the elevator.   


_ That was not FOR you, that was a reaction to something you DO, freak.  _ This time the intrusive voice breaking in on his thought wasn’t familiar. The voice of a stranger who’d shouted at him once, maybe. He couldn’t remember. The thought didn’t want to leave him either.   


Arthur’s face twisted into a deep scowl at the intrusion and his lips mouthed, “Go away.” Carrie noticed. She crossed her legs under her and scooted towards him a little. Whatever was happening with Arthur right now was  _ riveting  _ and she geared in to study him back.    


He was exasperated with himself. He couldn’t just enjoy a moment with a nice girl—No, there was  **always going to be something. ** She’d already touched him so much, and he hadn’t even been able to savor half of it because of the fucking rats, and try not to forget: she  **bit** him. Arthur wasn’t quite over the biting, or his biting of himself she’d indirectly caused, and the whole, tasting his blood, burning him with chemicals and  _ tasting his fucking blood again _ thing really made him feel… a way…    


It couldn’t be healthy to feel that way. Arthur’s head had slowly been lowering until his hair obscured his face. She couldn’t see him anymore, but she was still staring at him, trying to get any sort of read on what was happening. He was shaking so fast it looked like he was vibrating. Anxieties rose, and the tension was threatening to crush her.   


“Arthur?” She almost choked the word out. Her voice sounded foreign to her own ears.   


“Is something on your mind?” She didn’t touch him when she asked. It felt like she’d have been interrupting him to do so.   


“...Why?” Arthur was almost inaudible.   


“Why would I… want to make sure you’re comfortable with what we do?” Her inflections are rolling around at unusual places again, being steered by panic that hasn’t fully taken hold.   


“No, Why—Why would you want to sleep with me?” The shaking slows a little and she recognizes he’s clenching both of his fists to force himself to talk to her. Carrie worried he’d lose his nerve by falling victim to another evil giggle fit and she slid off the couch to sit in front of him, face to face.    


_ Oh no. What the fuck? Uhhh. Okay-—Well, handsome, it’s that you have this great set of pipes and oh, oh honey, that laugh? Honey. I mean really. Have you seen your eyes? Have you felt your own hands? Probably. Most people have. I feel very strange around you like I have to kick the shit out of anyone that looks at you wrong, and I haven’t even told you about the bugs _ — _ can you hear them? I worry about that; they go crazy over you and they’re so loud! In conclusion, for those previous reasons I would like to request a coitus, if you’d be so kind. _

That spiel was trash and she knew it. She couldn’t risk using it. The crown was the line, after all. This had to be good. She reached for a stale-looking, half-smoked cigarette out of her ashtray, hoping she could channel some decades-dead sex symbol to convince him she was the right choice. She silently invoked her trinity: Mae, Marlene, Marilyn, and sighed deeply. She lit the smoke and felt ready to place her bet.    


“Arthur… You gave me the most powerful orgasm I’ve ever had, and you didn’t even have to touch me...”    


The confession drained the blood from her face. Her eye suddenly felt very itchy behind its patch. She had to bite her lip to keep herself from giggling, knowing she had to sell this for him, regardless of any stage fright.   


“And you weren’t put off by the fact that, half-way through our date… I became a pirate. Typically that’s a good sign.”   


He laughed, for real this time. That silky sound that wrapped itself around her roughly a week ago revives her.   


“You didn’t mind that I punted a wild animal into the street and started shouting at its friends in a manner  _ most _ unladylike.” She used a character voice to parody some snide old woman she’d never met. He was showing her the same smile he’d given her in the vision, but reality left the pain on this face. Something darkly taunting told her if she tried hard enough maybe she could suck the sorrow out of him, but she didn’t let it break her concentration. The pageant was a fantasy but she could feel hundreds of eyes watching her. She had to be confident, and she couldn’t disappoint. 

Committed, she put some needed space between them by sprawling a little across her sofa, daring him to mirror her and relax by accident.   


“You… also didn’t mind that I bled… You uh… trusted me to treat a serious life threatening injury.”   


“I try not to swear in front of ladies. That hurt.”    


Her face tilted from cocky into regret.    


“I am so sorry about that, Arthur, I swear to god—I was moving too fast and I didn’t think it through—”   


Arthur was eager to forgive her. For all her howling and rambling, she was still intoxicating to him. Despite the best efforts of his illness, he felt comfortable. It allowed him to slip into something he hadn’t accessed in ages and he teased her with mock frustration.   


“Maybe so, but did you have to eat my blood? Was that necessary?”   


She didn’t respond at first, but a bright rouge rose to her cheeks, made more apparent by the black straps running diagonally over her face.   


“That was—um...I—Well, it—uhh...”   


_ Oh. _ _   
_

_ Wait. _   


** _Wait_ ** —he knew that tone, that exact fucking stutter. It had come out of his own mouth before. She was  **caught.**   


He paused. Maybe, if she felt like that too, then it wasn’t that unhealthy of a way to feel after all. Maybe the hospital had gotten it wrong, and it wasn’t a problem. He remembered someone telling him about how blowjobs used to be illegal. Maybe it’s like that. It’s very new for him.   


“No, I get it, blood’s hot.”    


That had to have been the wrong thing to say. That’d sounded terrible. He braced himself, but instead of revolting against him and throwing her door open in righteous anger like he expected, Carrie relaxed into a more sprawled out pose and told him,  “Right? What a scam, though. Like, better not go looking for the best aphrodisiac ever, ‘cause it has the audacity to have been inside you… the whole time.” She flared the end of her sentence with a dramatic leer into her glass and knocked back the last of her drink.

She offered Arthur the last drag of her dying cigarette and he accepted, taking a long inhale before he ashed it out in the tray. His eyes fell on the ridges of the screws on the coffee table. The reminded him too much of his own ribs.   


“I’m glad you agree though. People usually freak out about blood.”   
  
“People also usually freak out about being followed.”   


Oh. Oh  **fuck** .  ** _Why?_ **   


Why the fuck had he said that? What—What about this entire interaction had made him okay with even **_hinting_** at what he’d been up to? He was a professional level idiot, making a fool of himself in a beautiful woman’s apartment. Everything they’d stitched together had started to unravel instantly and the shadows were back on him just as fast. **She hadn’t even spoken yet.**  


“I—Yes, I was following you. I’m sorry—You’re just so pretty and I just wanted to know—”   


She shifted next to him and distracted him enough to get him out of the free fall. He broke his gaze with the floor and met her eye. A fresh cigarette was hanging out of her mouth, a lighter flaming in front of it but not close enough to meet the exposed tobacco, her body stiff and her eyebrow raised.   


** _Goddamn it_ ** **. Always something. **   


Carrie cleared her throat next to him. Her voice was flat.   


“Arthur...  _ Do you wanna run that by me again? _ ”   


He really didn’t.


	8. Trouble Out The Gate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They reflect and reach their own conclusions.

Arthur woke up with half his face buried in his pillow, his mind groggy and body sore. The sun was up and glaring down on his exposed eye through the blinds. Deep notes sang from inside his head. They blurred out his thoughts into a cloudy muddle. He stumbled around and eventually found his way to the kitchen to start brewing a pot of coffee. As the aroma of the grounds wafted to his face, the memory of how he’d  **ruined** his date with Carrie sent a soft shock through his torso. She’d been lovely, a bit wild, a little painful, but the memories of how he’d sabotaged himself bounced around in his head as he started fully waking up. He frowned and pressed his hands to the edge of the counter, leaning forward to stretch out his back.    


_ What did you really expect, Arthur? That she’d like you more for stalking her? She probably thinks you’re a damned sex-killer now.  _ Randall laughed at him as he scolded him inside his mind.   


His shoulders sagged out of the stretch and he felt his familiar negative thoughts settle onto him. Defeat, sorrow, humiliation, and guilt paraded themselves for him, their banners waving. His own personal four horsemen, stomping him down under their iron-shod hooves. With a click, the coffee pot ceased its trickle, and he hastily poured himself a cup. He was up earlier than he needed to be for work. The coffee was too hot, but he only swallowed faster, scorching his throat in the process.    


_ You deserve that, telling secrets for no damn reason.  _ He told himself.    


In spite of the warm sunbeam that woke him up, the apartment was cold. He shuddered as the frigid air caressed his shoulders. He imagined Carrie coming up behind him, burying her face in his hair and wrapping her arms around his neck to warm him up, whispering soft affirmations to make him happy.    


_You’re not gonna be fucking happy._   


He sighed at the intrusive thought, and rubbed his face lazily. He eyed the clock. He didn’t have to be at work for another 3 hours.    


“Happy?”    


Arthur winced when his mother called for him.    


“Yeah, mom?” Her interruptions could get annoying, but he was glad he didn’t have to fake an emotion for her right now. He was so sick of feeling bad, but being able to let himself feel bad offered its own solace. Performing for her was exhausting.    


“Are you making breakfast?” her voice was shrill, and now awake he realized Carrie had probably heard that.    


“Yeah...I’m on it.”    


  
_Private Eyes! They’re watching you! They see your every move! _  


With a hard slap to her clock radio, Carrie woke up scowling.    


In sleep, she’d been visited by dark shapes that lay heavy over her chest. It’d rendered her a nasty headache and a poor mood. Her eyepatch had shed itself in the night and her injury was warm and itchy now that it was fully able to breathe. Her vision had returned to it, somewhat. It wasn’t bleeding anymore, but the white of her eye was now all red.    


_ All the better to see you with. _   


The words made her bugs chitter and chirp. A warmth pulsed up to her face, but the sensation snagged on the memory of how the previous night had ended. An exasperated sigh escaped her reflection. What a fucking shame.    


She finished her morning routine and flopped herself down on her couch. Her body was rigid as she worked at rolling a shell around some ground weed. Disappointment willed her to indulge herself in angrily smoking her way through the last of it. When the blunt was in her mouth she snapped her lighter around sharply to light it.   


“Can you fucking believe that shit, Hammond?” Carrie seethed, taking a deep drag.    


Hammond couldn’t answer, still being inanimate, but she imagined he was just as morose today as she was, if not more than a little annoyed with her.    


“I should’ve never let my guard down, you’re right.” She sighed. Her beloved continued, and offered his comfort.    


“I know, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make a cuckold of you. I’ll try to keep it in the bedroom next time.”   


_ Next time? You’re gonna give him a next time? _ _   
_

She stilled, and a miserable whine came out of her throat.   


_ Lord, this is fucking stupid.  _ _   
_

He’d looked so sad after he’d told her that it made her want to reach out and stop him from leaving. She’d been upset with herself for feeling that way and the anger from it displayed itself on her face when he did leave. Remembering it left her almost distraught.

He had waived his own red flag at her, like it was  _ nothing, _ just a slip of the tongue. What was she supposed to do? Let that slide? Pft. Why? She’d never let that shit slide before, why should she allow herself to do it for him? Did he satisfy a dark desire she couldn’t pinpoint? No, she’d pinpointed most of her desires several years ago. Was he just that cute?   


Carrie groaned. Her head was aching through the weed, and her heart hurt from practicing how to flip.    


**Cute** .    


It didn’t do him justice.    


Physicality was one thing. If a dilapidated gothic row house were a person they still wouldn’t look as haunted as he did. Wouldn’t be as narrow either. Why was she attracted to the idea of him being narrow? She had so many questions for herself, too many. Her thoughts became frenzied and bled over before they compressed into a jewel of bother at the center of her chest.    


Mentality, though?

_ He wasn’t even smart enough to lie, Carrie. Do you really want a stupid boyfriend? _ _   
_

The intrusion got to her. It was wrong. Arthur wasn’t stupid. He was calculating. She’d  **seen** it. It was awkward, but the slight twitches in his brow and the way he’d fall quiet before answering her gave it away. He was reading her, just like she’d read him. Unlike hers, his expression usually smacked of fear and gave her a terrible thrill. He didn’t want to upset her. He didn’t want to say the wrong thing. He hadn’t said anything wrong so far; well, except his confession. That was the wrong thing, but even that had been almost sweet. A rose tint washed itself over her retrospective as she thought about the way he’d blushed and stuttered through explaining himself, before he gave it all away in a panic. A languid smile threaded itself over her face. 

_ “ _ It isn’t wrong to want someone honest,” she chided herself aloud. _   
_

_ You shouldn’t want him at  _ ** _all _ ** _ after that.  _   


“Hey! Am I not human- _ kinda?  _ I am allowed to want to interact with others.”    


_Why do you still want to try this?!?__  
_   
Carrie’s fantasy pageant picked up where it left off the night before. _She and Arthur, still drenched in red, pulled away from their almost volatile embrace and murmured rushed proclamations of affection into each other’s ears. He wraps his arms around her waist and leans into her. When she rested her chin on top of his head as he kissed her neck, she could see her competitors more clearly. They were stock-still, unnaturally so. She squinted and focused more before a dark grin spread over her face. They’d been mannequins all along. The pageant had been rigged. _The voice reprimanded her with disgust._  
_

_ Oh. Yuck. _   


“That’s rude. This is a totally acceptable want. He’s nice!--Just awkward.”    


_ Gonna be a lot more awkward, now that you threw him out.  _ _   
_

“He said he needed to leave, I just didn’t stop him.”   


_ He looked  _ ** _pitiful_ ** _ and you just let him walk-- _ _   
_

“Of course he looked like that, he bit his own tail. It hurts.” _  
_

_ Okay, so? What are you gonna say, “Ha ha that was so weird, Please use me to jerk off?” _ _   
_

“Heck no, he’d think I was making fun of him.”

_ Well, you can’t cook for him. You’d poison him _ .    


This earned a snort and a scoff. If anyone didn’t have an internal dialogue, they'd be surprised how funny the voices inside their own head could be. They shouldn’t be, because the voices know everything about their host.    


“You are not wrong.”   


_ You could just surprise him in your fancy nightgown again. He looooved that. _ _   
_

“Oh fuck you. Never again. I can’t wear a reminder of a failure.”    


_ What do you think that says about who really failed?  _ _   
_

The edge on the voice’s tone cut through her high and chilled her. She chose to ignore it and allowed herself to drop the tension that she’d thrown on when she first reclined. She stretched out more and finally fucking relaxed. The blunt was put out and she let it rest on a notch in the ashtray. The earworm from her alarm nestled its way past her thoughts and sang to her, and she giggled a little.    


“My red eye, it’s watching you… it sees your  _ eeeevery _ move- ch-ch.” With each  _ ch _ she thwacked an index finger over its respective knee to mimic the cymbal crash.    


_ Oh... _ ** _oh, bitch._ ** ** _   
_ **

Carrie stiffened again.    


“Hammond, honey, what was that?”    


Hammond didn’t say anything.    


“You didn’t? Oh. So--? No, nevermind, I see…Well either way, it’s simple... I like it.”

When it came to effectively tailing her target, there were a few options available to her. She could wait for him to leave, do her best to scurry out of the window, down the fire escape without making a sound, and play fast and loose by hoping she didn’t lose him in the streets. That was working hard, though. Finding out where he worked, staking it out and following him once he left for an assignment? That streamlined things a bit, made it more of a working smart situation.    


Overexertion is a girl’s worst enemy.

She heard the creak and jangling slam of his front door. It caused her to freeze. She wasn’t anywhere near ready to carry out her plan; her outfit wasn’t suitable for hunting and truthfully she was still high. The lack of preparedness demanded she work smart with this situation. There was only one person she could think of who would know off hand where Arthur worked, and that was his mother.    


A current of dread rolled over her as she realized that this meant interacting with  _ his  _ ** _mother._ ** Carrie hadn’t met Penny. She’d only heard her through the walls. This would ruin the fantasy first impression she’d been working on. It orbited around being effortlessly impressive, bringing a homemade pie, maybe bringing a robot that can serve pie.    


A vision came to her, of a small mechanical spider using swiss army limbs to carefully carve and lift away a slice of blackberry pie; before abruptly catapulting the slice behind it. The dessert landed on the wall above Arthur’s head with a sharp splatter. Carrie erupted into giggles over it. She decided to save introducing Mrs. Fleck to her grandchildren for another time.    


Still, she had to prepare. Mrs. Fleck was probably older. If any information was going to be gained, she needed to trust her. How do you get trust? Empathy. If Carrie could get Mrs. Fleck to identify with her on some level, she could probably get what she needed. A lucite traincase was torn from its home under her bed. It echoed a loud clack when she dropped it a little too carelessly on the coffee table before she started rifling through the make-up inside it, pausing to set up a little stand mirror to begin her ritual. 

Make-up for any performance is designed entirely around character. Its purpose is to convey in presentation everything you as the audience need to know about the owner of the face. The character Carrie wanted to be for Penny’s audience was, ironically enough, the girl next door. Someone innocent, unassuming, delicate. That meant gingham, bubbliness, and worst of all, _Pastels_.   
A shudder went through her. The aesthetic had it’s appeal but the concept of what it represented wasn’t her jam. Alas, the show must go on.   
  
She held a sunhat in front of her chest as she steeled herself. There were a lot of ways cold-calling upon Mrs. Fleck could play out. The bad possibilities wailed at her as loud as they could manage. It mader her hesitate before knocking on the door. Maybe she wouldn’t answer? That might give her some time to get over this silly idea.   


After a beat Carrie swallowed her anxiety. There was also no point in drawing it out.    


She rapped three sharp knocks and braced for the worst. Her reward was the sound of shuffling and a series of hurried footsteps.    


“Who is it?” The voice through the door managed to be gruff and delicate at the same time.   


It was more than a little nerve wracking.    


“I live next door. I know Arthur? I was supposed to give him this hat.”    


The sounds of Ms. Fleck fumbling with the locks on the other side of the door clicked and scraped. The door flung open as best it could and the chain that kept it closed drew tight across the opening with a rough jingle.    


Ms. Fleck was actually much prettier than Carrie expected. Shadows of glamour from the past were drawn over her face and it was obvious she had been one of the most beautiful women in Gotham when she was younger. She was very Grey Gardens.    


“How do you know my son?”    


_ Well, she doesn’t have cat food breath--Wait--FUCK. _   


“We speak on the elevator sometimes? He said he liked my hat. I told him I’d loan it to him.” _   
_

_ Nice recovery. Maybe it won’t be so bad.  _ _   
_

“I’m Cara-Beth,” Carrie said, holding her hand out and smiling.    


_ Who the fuck is Cara-Beth? _ _   
_

The voice had a right to be scolding. That was in no way her name. Lying to your boyfriend’s mother isn’t a good first impression.   


“Penny,” the redhead replied, catching Carrie’s palm and shaking it lightly.    


“I’m so sorry to bother you, but is he home by chance? He said he could use it for his clown--”   


“He’s already gone to work.” Penny was curt, but not overtly rude.    


“Oh. Oh shi--oot, Um--Maybe I could run it over to where he works? I don’t know the name of the business though…”    


_ That’s right, don’t ask, just imply that she should tell you.  _ _   
_

“I don’t either.”    


Penny’s statement ground Carrie’s plan to a screeching halt.    


_ What?!? HOW?! FUCK! Okay, Uhhhh-UH- FUCK IT--WE’LL DO IT LIVE! _ _   
_

“Oh, I see. Well--”   


“I can take that for him though. I’ll make sure he gets it.” Penny smiled at her when she spoke.    


It took a lot of energy for Carrie to not falter and return the same smile. She worried it was half an inch over the line of being too false, but if she dwelled on that for too long it would make it worse.    


“Of course! Thank you so much!” She chirped and handed the hat to Penny through the door.    


“No trouble.” And with that Penny shut the door.    


Carrie was stunned.    


_ Who the fuck doesn’t know where their own son works?  _   


She didn’t answer herself, just turned to go back to her own home. The “Nice-Girl” outfit was starting to itch and she needed to shed that skin before she could think of a new plan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see! Chapter 9 is currently in progress. It will be more Arthur heavy, and it's gonna be *~~*repulsive*~~*


End file.
